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Neuroscience
Growth Cocktail Helps Restore Spinal Connections in the Most Severe Injuries
Repairing damaged nerves in a rodent study marks a crucial first step toward bringing back lost movement
⦁ By ⦁ Emily Willingham on August 30, 2018
In 1995 the late actor Christopher Reeve, who most famously played Superman, became paralyzed from the neck down after a horseback-riding accident. The impact from the fall left him with a complete spinal cord injury at the neck, preventing his brain from communicating with anything below it. Cases like Reeve’s are generally considered intractable injuries, absent any way to bridge the gap to restore disrupted communication lines.
When Reeve died in 2004 a means of reconnection had yet to be built. Now, 14 years later, researchers have coaxed nerve cells to span the divide of a complete spinal cord injury. Their findings, described August 29 in Nature, are specific to only one kind of nerve cell and much work remains before a means of reconnection reaches patients, but the results make an impression. “From the scientific perspective, this is pretty significant,” says Yu-Shang Lee, an assistant professor of medicine at Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute, who was not involved in the study. “As far as scientific impact, it is a good leap.”
read...https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...vere-injuries/

Thursday, August 30, 2018
Study provides an early recipe for rewiring spinal cords
NIH-funded preclinical results suggest returning nerve cells to a younger state could aid in repair.

For many years, researchers have thought that the scar that forms after a spinal cord injury actively prevents damaged neurons from regrowing. In a study of rodents, scientists supported by the National Institutes of Health showed they could overcome this barrier and reconnect severed spinal cord nerves by turning back the neurons’ clocks to put them into an early growth state. Once this occurs, neurons could be induced to regrow across the scarred tissue. The research was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of NIH
more...

A new spinal cord injury treatment is getting patients back on their feet
September 10, 2018 by Kathleen Masterson, University of California, San Francisco

Matt Wetschler was bodysurfing at Ocean Beach in San Francisco when he went for a wave and didn't come back up. Some other surfers saw his body floating like a log and pulled him ashore.
He was lucky: an ICU nurse happened to be walking along the beach and started CPR. By the time the ambulance arrived and shocked him, he had a heartbeat again. But his injury was serious – he'd fractured two vertebrae in his neck from hyperextension.
Wetschler was rushed to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Unit (ZSFG), where he became the first patient to undergo an innovative new protocol for treating severe spine injuries.
"For many, many years, these injuries were believed to be irreversible, that if the spinal cord was injured, it was not coming back. We've been able to disprove that notion," said Sanjay Dhall, MD, a UC San Francisco associate professor of Neurological Surgery and director of Spinal Neurotrauma at ZSFG.
The new protocol, based on research by Dhall and others, is a mixture of revised evaluations and new treatments to personalize care that, in Wetschler's case and others, spurred quicker recoveries.
read...https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-...-patients.html

I live 50 minutes from there, maybe I give them a call and see what's going on.

Partially paralyzed Sherwood Park man prepares for life-changing clinical trial
Edmonton Journal
Updated: September 11, 2018
Okay, I did call them and they say that he is the last person of the other four that already done this and is face 1 trial, and then they would start face 2. I asked them if I can participate too and they say for me to register so I can go there to try other things and see if they can help me with my level of paralysis. Maybe they can learn more from anyone from us. Gee, my butt is tired of sitting for 36 years now.

After suffering a spinal cord injury at a local trampoline park early last year, a young Sherwood Park man is preparing to take the next step in his recovery.
Landon Smith, 20, has been accepted to participate in a clinical trial at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, which may ultimately help him to walk again.
He will be the first Canadian — and youngest candidate — to take part in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved trial, which is set to begin in early October.
“I’m very excited to be a part of this research,” Smith said Monday at the ReYu Paralysis Recovery Centre, where he has trained for more than one year to try to regain functionality.
“I really want to be that person to show people that no matter what you face in life, there’s always something you can do to change it and change that trajectory.”
Smith was at a birthday party when he did a front-flip into a foam pit and broke his neck at Jump Park Trampoline in Sherwood Park in January 2017.
The incident left him paralyzed from the chest down and he spent more than seven months at the University of Alberta Hospital and the Glenrose Rehabilitation Centre.
read more...https://edmontonjournal.com/news/loc...clinical-trial

Asterias Provides 24 Month Cohort 2 Update for its OPC1 Phase 1/2a Clinical Trial in Severe Spinal Cord Injury
\l "\l "\l "https://plus.google.com/share?url=http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/09/12/1569609/0/en/Asterias-Provides-24-Month-Cohort-2-Update-for-its-OPC1-Phase-1-2a-Clinical-Trial-in-Severe-Spinal-Cord-Injury.htmlEmail Print Friendly Share
September 12, 2018 07:00 ET | Source: Asterias Biotherapeutics
FREMONT, Calif., Sept. 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Asterias Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NYSE American: AST), a biotechnology company dedicated to developing cell-based therapeutics to treat neurological conditions associated with demyelination and cellular immunotherapies to treat cancer, today provided additional data from the Company’s ongoing Phase 1/2a SCiStar study designed to evaluate the safety and potential efficacy of OPC1 in the treatment of severe cervical spinal cord injury. All 6 subjects from Cohort 2 in the SCiStar study have now completed a 24-month follow-up as part of the study’s long-term follow-up protocol and each subject either retained the motor function recovery seen through 12 months or saw further motor function recovery from 12 to 24 months.
“While the primary endpoint for the SCiStar trial was 12 months, we are further encouraged by this additional follow-up data that shows both durable engraftment and motor function recovery being maintained or improved upon at 24 months,” commented Ed Wirth, Chief Medical Officer. “We believe the primary goal of SCiStar, which was to observe the safety of OPC1 in cervical spinal cord injury patients and to accumulate data related to important factors such as optimal dosing levels, the immunosuppression regimen, engraftment of the cells, and rates of motor recovery observed among different study subpopulations, have been successfully achieved and increases our confidence as we prepare to meet the FDA later this year to discuss the next trial design.”
Below are a summary of key findings at 24 months for the Cohort 2 subjects:https://globenewswire.com/news-relea...rd-Injury.html

Study reveals way to regrow lost spinal cord connections
Download PDF Copy
Reviewed by Alina Shrourou, BScAug 30 2018
For many years, researchers have thought that the scar that forms after a spinal cord injury actively prevents damaged neurons from regrowing. In a study of rodents, scientists supported by the National Institutes of Health showed they could overcome this barrier and reconnect severed spinal cord nerves by turning back the neurons' clocks to put them into an early growth state. Once this occurs, neurons could be induced to regrow across the scarred tissue. The research was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of NIH.
"For decades researchers have been trying to make severed neurons regrow across a spinal cord injury and reconnect with neurons on the other side. This study suggests that may require manipulating three key growth processes," said Lyn Jakeman, Ph.D., program director, NINDS. "These insights are important for understanding the mechanisms of injury and regeneration that may one day be applied to develop potential treatments for spinal cord injury."

Epidural stimulation aids in recovery of individuals with spinal cord injury
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Reviewed by Alina Shrourou, BScSep 17 2018
For the first time since 2009, Stefanie Putnam is able to prepare - and eat - meals for herself, put the vest on her service dog, Kaz, and drive herself to activities with her horse without losing consciousness or gasping for breath.
"My whole life has opened up for me again!" Putnam said.
A C4 spinal cord injury in 2009 left Putnam paralyzed from the neck down and suffering from chronic low blood pressure. She relied on medication and tight corsets to maintain her blood pressure, but she still passed out five or six times a day.
read....https://www.news-medical.net/news/20...rd-injury.aspx

FDA Accepts Asterias Biotherapeutics’ Request to Meet and Discuss Next Phase of Development for OPC1 Spinal Cord Injury Clinical Program

Quote:
The Company is currently completing the ongoing SCiStar trial, an open-label, single-arm trial testing three sequential escalating doses of OPC1 administered at up to 20 million OPC1 cells in 25 subjects with subacute motor complete (AIS-A or AIS-B) cervical (C-4 to C-7) spinal cord injuries (SCI). All of the patients have been enrolled and dosed and the Company believes the data presented to date have been consistently positive and reaffirm the Company’s view that OPC1 is safe and durably engrafts and has the potential to improve motor function.
read...